A New Strategy for Developing an Animal Model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Abstract

Objective To develop a new strategy for generating an animal model of temporal lobe epilepsy. Methods A total of 160 healthy adult male SD rats were used to generate the models of temporal lobe epilepsy by three kinds of techniques and select an optimal technique to generate a suitable model of temporal lobe epilepsy. The animals were assigned to a amygdale-kindling control group (AKC group), lithium chloride-pilocarpine control group (LPC group), a lithium chloride-pilocarpine followed by amygdale-kindling group (PAK group). Other healthy normal rats were used as normal rat control group (NRC group). The epileptic seizures, the EEG changes, the expression of ZnT3, Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP), and GABAA receptors, the number of hippocampal pyramidal cells detected by Nissl’s staining were compared among groups. Results The rate of successful model of temporal lobe epilepsy, the spontaneous seizures in the PAK group were significantly greater than those in the AKC group. The mortality in the PAK group was significantly decreased compared to the LPC group. The decreased number of pyramidal cells and GABAA receptors, MFS and astrocyte hyperplasia were found in the hippocampus of the epileptic rats in the PAK, AKC and LPC groups. Compared with the traditional amygdala kindling model, intraperitoneal injection of lithium chloride-pilocarpine combined with amygdala kindling (PAK group) decreased the time of modeling, increased the success rate of temporal lobe epilepsy modeling. Compared with the traditional lithium chloride-pilocarpine model, the mortality decreased significantly in the improved model (PAK group). The pathological features of the reformative model (PAK group) were consistent with the results of the amygdala kindling model (AKC group) and lithium chloride-pilocarpine model(LPC group). It is a viable way to improve the rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy. Conclusions The strategies for developing an temporal lobe epilepsy model in our study might be a reliable method. Such strategies increased the success rate of preparing the model of temporal lobe epilepsy than single amygadale kindling and decreased the mortality compared with the single lithium chloride-pilocarpine model.